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Re:California is cracking down on the gig economy by freeflight on Saturday June 01, 2019 @03:18AM (#20067831)
Those German worker rights, and strong ties between companies and unions were supposedly among the reasons why Walmart failed in Germany:

“They didn’t understand that in Germany, companies and unions are closely connected,” Mr. Poschmann said. “Bentonville didn’t want to have anything to do with unions. They thought we were communists.” [0]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/02/business/worldbusiness/02...

Re:California is cracking down on the gig economy by pgeorgi on Saturday June 01, 2019 @03:39AM (#20067915)
and nothing of value was lost
Re:California is cracking down on the gig economy by kwcts on Saturday June 01, 2019 @05:15AM (#20068264)
>In Germany, Wal-Mart stopped requiring sales clerks to smile at customers — a practice that some male shoppers interpreted as flirting — and scrapped the morning Wal-Mart chant by staff members.

This is just fucking insane. That's not a supermarket, that's like a cult.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpPUUWp5sO4

Re:California is cracking down on the gig economy by smacktoward on Saturday June 01, 2019 @02:56PM (#20070822)
It's one of those awful ideas that seems to bubble back up into the corporate mind periodically. IBM actually did the same thing back in the first half of the 20th century (see https://www.networkworld.com/article/2333702/a-history-of-si... for the full history), even going so far as to publish a songbook titled "Songs of the I.B.M": https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/08/tripp...

They kept it up into the 1950s, when Tom Watson died and control of the company passed to his son.

I like this note from the end of the Network World article, where they ask a Harvard Business School professor if there's anything similar going on in the contemporary tech world:

> "I don't think there is a Microsoft company song other than 'Get to the bank as fast as possible so you can deposit the check,' " Tedlow adds.

Re:California is cracking down on the gig economy by lapnitnelav on Saturday June 01, 2019 @07:22AM (#20068663)
How can you be a grown adult having to work at a minimum wage job, see this and not die inside?